In Defense of Petersen

Budda was coming to Washington no matter who the coach was ;-)

GrundleStiltzkin said:

Budda was coming to Washington no matter who the coach was ;-)

"As Scott has told us many times..."

The fact this needed to be written at this point speaks volumes.

@Tequilla‌ ??? Are you poasting under different names?

prssoapbar 1 day ago

I've been staying out of this conversation because it's obviously controversial, and I didn't want to get caught up in all the emotion of it. At this point, though, I think I'll say something about it.

As fans, it is easy to think of alternate scenarios that in our minds would have clearly worked out better. However, we are not standing on that sideline or playing in that game. In my mind, Petersen is getting raked over the coals for what at the end of the day is a judgement call.

Put yourself in Petersen's shoes. You need to kill the game. What is the lowest-risk way to do that?

Take knees until there are sevon or eight seconds left, and then punt. That's a worthy idea but runs the risk of a bad long snap (which happened before in that game), a fumbled catch of the long snap or a blocked punt. Clearly Arizona would have gone all out for a block.
Have Cyler Miles take the snaps and then run around in the backfield for several seconds a couple times so that the final knee ends the game. Another excellent idea, but runs the risk of Miles trying to do something that is most likely not worked on much in practice, and with the other team headhunting, opens him up to getting blindsided and coughing up the ball, or making some other kind of mistake.
Run the ball to try to get one more first down so we actually can eventually take a knee and kill the game. This (obviously) runs the risk of a fumble, but also puts the ball into the hands of one of the guys on the team who is most rigorously trained not to fumble it, and runs plays that have been worked on in practice ad infinitum. Further, even without the first down this option may use the seconds we need to get the game to where we can kill it.

It's the job of the coach to weigh these risks in his mind and decide which is least risky. It is easy for us as fans watching the game on TV to wail that the last option is obviously the most risky, but from on that field, from on that sideline, maybe it isn't so clear-cut.

I hear the complaints, and I don't like how the game ended anymore than anyone, but demanding confessions from the coach because we think he screwed up what amounts to a judgement call is, in my opinion, not entirely fair. Just because it didn't work out doesn't mean it was stupid. There's a reason why Petersen occupies the sideline and I occupy my couch in front of the TV. For those who think he is in over his head, I remind you that he has beaten Oregon more often than we have in the last 10 years, and was competing for and winning BCS bowl games while we were struggling to achieve a winning record. For may part I wholeheartedly support him in his selection as the Huskies' coach moving forward, and although I have in my mind second-guessed his decisions at the end of that game, I do not think less of him because he won't repent for what at the end of the day is a judgement call.